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RickB- Human, Artist, Fool.

Ynys Mon, UK.

The blog is called ten percent because of what Kurt Vonnegut wrote when remembering Susan Sontag - She was asked what she had learned from the Holocaust, and she said that 10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and that 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and that the remaining 80 percent could be moved in either direction.-

And I'm writing it because I need the therapy and I lust for world domination.

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Deckchairs, Titanic, etc

5 June, 2009 — RickB

The current middle management of the UK for the neoliberal hegemony is having a bit of a snit fit. From those inside these are two interesting reactions so far, Livingstone, Meacher (!)Hmmm, What chance John McDonnell taking over No. 10? Not much. And anyway let someone else take the poison chalice, bide your time J McD, a Tory victory might be what’s needed for the party to purge the NL conservatives (let’s face it half of them will probably join Cameron’s smarmy ship) then time for some actual social left politics to re-emerge. After all the ‘crisis’ of capitalism is only being sporadically postponed by current measures, the next ‘crisis’ could be smack bang in the middle of a Cameron reign. After all the financiers have not changed, currently hoarding oil (probably bought with the public’s bailout cash!) playing games with resources to enrich themselves at our cost.

Meanwhile in pug nosed seventies throwback news:- Purnell is beginning his leadership bid by again demonstrating what a belligerent prick he is, he tells Brown to step down, did he get him confused with a peasant he wants to put in a workhouse? And note his great cause is tossed aside the instant his career is threatened, Thatcherite to the core- Hate on poor people but always priorities your own career welfare.

And for all the expenses shenanigans let’s not forget this is a government that committed massive war crimes.

So fuck ’em. This is me, not crossing the street to piss on the fire engulfing New Labour. Bye Bye shitheads, not missing you already.

Britain’s Gini co-efficient is now 0.36, beyond the normal bounds of inequality seen in developed countries. In the United States the figure is 0.408, putting the largest economy in the world on a par with Mexico in terms of income inequality. But by European standards, the UK figure is exceptionally high. Sweden has a Gini coefficient of 0.23, Germany 0.283 and in France the figure is 0.327.

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7 Responses to “Deckchairs, Titanic, etc”

The point is if John McD. decided to stand then that would be a positive step and we have to act as we need to create and maintain an indentity of the Left.

“a Tory victory might be what’s needed for the party to purge the NL conservatives”

To be honest Rick, if there are any purges it will against the Labour left. I think there will be massive splits (the haemorrhaging already) in the LP. Purnell’s piece in last wk’s Guardian about public funding and political parties is a shot across the bows from him as it highlights a desperation to sever all ties with the trade unions and possibly a creation of a straightforward bourgeois party. That’s the method, I think, of James Purnell. He is a careerite as opposed to a Blairite (Prescott has a point). And there are a NL clones who are careerites and nail their political masts to whatever political ideology that will help them up the greasy pole. NL’s ideology and its worship of neoliberalism and all things corporate has sucked the democracy, and the principles out of the LP by politically attacking the core voters.

I mean, right from the start, how democratic was it where two men met in a trendy yuppie restaurant in north London to decide who will be PM……
It was never ever up to the membership or even the electorate.

Labour electorally is dead in the water but I don’t think NL has finished with the neoliberal agenda. Whoever takes over from Brown, be it Johnson, Miliband, Cruddas/Purnell nightmare…. they have been connected to the neoliberal agenda and all are war mongers!

You may well be right! But surely sooner or later people will realise that labour or con they were both ultimately hollowed out and run down by the neolib policies they followed, which often amount to simply repealing regulations on capital while increasing regulations on the people. It’s an ideology that is largely about handing control to financiers and corporations so it makes politicians less relevant. So maybe just for their own survival they will twig it might not be good to keep doing stuff that renders them not much more than Mall cops under orders from the City… I ponder, tories don’t much care they always were business revolving door suits slime but Labour might/should/could?!?!?

I think JMcD should wait it out, see where the chips fall, I think the next leader will be the Ian Duncan Smith era type trajectory!

Purnell is such a scumbucket, if he fails I can see a Portillo reinvention, maybe a celebrity dancing show first? But for now I reckon he might have in place backing for a bid, so he gets the IDS gig, wanker.

Yvette Cooper…hmm, safe pair of technocrat hands for privatisation ‘reforms’ perchance. And a big home flipper!

I did like this one bit from Compass (spit)
“Labour should now use its remaining time in office doing everything it feasibly can to do three things:
• First, it should protect the people who stand to suffer most if the Tories win. This would include ideas like index-linking the minimum wage and benefit payments to ensure George Osborne doesn’t allow them to whither on the vine by not updating them. We also need to encourage a wider public debate about the need for dependable public services, to end child poverty and the fair taxes necessary to pay for both.”http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=4162

That’s what they could realistically do, pre-emptively shelter the future targets of a tory admin, so maybe for that JMcD having some juice would be good, but I still think the top job is a poisoned chalice for now.

I think overall the NL next gen want to make it into a US Dem/DLC style party, mostly funded by corporations and being the friendly face of capital to play good cop to conservative bad cop. Because that’s choice innit?

No, I disagree…. if there’s a leadership challenge then the Left has to act, yes, we aint gonna win but if it means highlighting and exposing a socialist alternative to NL, then what has McD and the Left gotta lose? Nothing. And that there is a Socialist Left beyond NL.

John could lose his seat at the next election anyhows then if we don’t take a risk then we may as well give up tomorrow.
Carpe Diem and all that malarky!!!!

There is a difference between Labour and Conservative. Yes, the ideology is pretty much the same between NL and the Tories but you need to analyse and examine the contradictions and dynamics within the whole of the LP. The LP isn’t just NL…it does have a Labour left, and that needs to be understood, and there are differences within that. You can’t just say Tory, Labour ….no difference… it is much more complicated than that also the relationship between the TUs and Labour is fraught with contradictions and tensions.

Yvette Cooper will be doing what she’s told, no different…. NL ortho clone, like her partner, Ed Balls….

Finally, if I happen to stumble on an alternate universe where NL decides to protect the masses from the Tories (as outlined in the Compass strategy) the Tories will change the law as they will have a big majority and change it to something they want.

Neoliberalism creates political issues primarily due to its social and environmental destructiveness (self-destructive hence credit crunch). In theory Labour should be a social democratic party, NL may even chuck in a couple of sops to appease their core voters but for an overall change, they have twigged, they won’t..

NL and Labour are the tensions between a bourgeois workers’ party and a straightforward bourgeois party. These contradictions came about during the 1980s (the advent of ‘New Realism’) NL is that destructive strain. We are seeing the break-up of Labour and NL.

Well if we ain’t gonna win then that’s fine, (sounds wrong somehow) the next leader is going to be a caretaker.
I don’t take labour as just NL, but in power so far NL are the management class, could Labour purge NL? That would be nice.

Actually I’ve just though of another reason they won’t enact protections, they will be looking for private sector positions to swell their opposition pay so won’t want to appear bolshie!